Day 50 - India Day 3

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

We woke up really early today to view the amazing Taj Mahal for sunrise. Unfortunately, it the cloud was completely overcast so we weren’t able to see any sun. We spent about 2 hours walking around and inside. One of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen though. Again, I took a lot of picture but I don’t think that any of the pictures that I took or have ever seen can ever do the magnitude of the beauty and surrounding structures justice. Our guide didn’t come inside with us because it costs750 Rupees to actually go in. We went inside at 6:30 and planned on meeting him at 8:15 at the south gate, we came in through the east gate. After a little more than an hour we had seen everything and were ready to go, so we headed to the south gate even though it wasn’t time to leave yet. We were surprised to find out that the south gate doesn’t even open until 8am. We had some time to kill and both the east and west gates were open so we thought that we could just go out those gates and walk around to the south gate. It really didn’t look like this would be a problem at all. From where we were standing they didn’t look far from each other and it SHOULD have been relatively easy to get to. So we head out the east gate and start to walk back towards where we think the south gate is. It wasn’t long until we realized that we had no idea where we were. We were in a poor neighborhood, similar to almost all of Agra though, and couldn’t find the South Gate. 4 Americans stick out like a sore thumb about anywhere in India. Some locals who knew English and saw us told us how to get back to the gate that we originally came out of. Everyone that we have came in contact with in India has been extremely nice to us. More than one person saw us in the neighborhood and helped us get back to the gate for the Taj. So we got our own little township visit for free, you would never have adventures like that with an organized SAS trip.

On the side topic of SAS trips, the trip for going to Delhi/Agra through semester at sea costs around $1200. We were able to do everything for about $700. Traveling independently is a lot cheaper, and you get to do things that you wouldn’t regularly do. You also travel in a group of 30-90 Americans. I think it would just be really hard to get any real sense of the culture when you’re in a big group like that. So I’m glad that we’ve been doing all of this traveling independently. I feel like my experience is so much better because of it.

There was a group of at least 100 SAS people that arrived at the Taj right after us. As we were getting our tickets to get inside, they all got in line because they already had their tickets. Our tour guide saw this huge line and took us to the front of it so we could get in right away, just another advantage of NOT going with an SAS trip. The whole time that we were inside we were staying a few minutes ahead of the ‘’mob’’ so we wouldn’t be seen as part of that group.
After an amazing morning, we went back to the hotel to get some breakfast before starting our trip back to Delhi.

Our next stop was in Delhi, at the `Baha’I House of worship. ‘’The design of the building is inspired by the lotus, the exquisitely beautiful flower and symbol of purity that is inseparably associated with worship and religion in India. All Baha’I Houses of Worship are nine-sided. Nine because it’s the highest digit and symbolizes comprehensiveness, oneness and unity.’’ It was an AMAZING sight. When we were walking up there we noticed that almost everyone was of Indian descent, so we stuck out quite a bit. Right before we were about to check our shoes this guy comes up to me and grabs my arm ‘’excuse me sir, excuse me. Can I take a picture with you?’’ haha, he was very excited, there was a group of 7 or 8 of them that wanted to take a picture with me, the white, red-headed American. It was pretty funny. We became the tourist attraction at the tourist attraction.

Some quotes from the Baha’I pamphlet that they gave us that I really liked:
‘’God grant that the light of unity may envelop the whole earth, and that the seal, ‘the Kingdom is God’s’, may be stamped upon the brow of all its peoples’’ – Baha’u’llah
‘’It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind is its citizens.’’ – Baha’u’llah

Our last stop was at a very old Muslim Mosque called Quwwatul-Islam which means the Might of Islam. It’s the earliest existent mosque is all of India, completed in 1197AD.

After this stop it was time to head to the airport to drop off the girls, who had a flight at 7:30pm. David and I wanted an extra night in Delhi so we got a flight at 5:30am. After we dropped them off we stopped by the Incredible India place that we booked our trip through to request either a refund for our extra night, then we would go to the airport and try to get an earlier flight, or the change our hotel to one with wireless internet. So they changed our hotel to a place with some wireless internet. The location that they moved us to was a lot better as well. Right outside of our hotel was a huge central market. Shortly after checking in we got some food at a local restaurant then checked out all of the shops in the street.

After we checked out the scene we headed right to the internet. It wasn’t super fast, but it was no doubt faster than the ship. I was finally able to download XP Service Pack 2, which was AWESOME. Now I can finally install Office 2007, iTunes, Windows Media Player, and get rid of the crappy wireless network manager that pre-service pack 2 had. I was also able to upload a bunch of pictures from Brazil. I had 3 different uploads going though, and Flickr won’t order them by name so they’re all out of order, which stinks, but at least they’re up there. It wasn’t fast enough to get any other countries up though. Still, it was awesome to have semi-quality internet for a few hours.